a new rating system

Last Thursday, I did make an attempt at riding my newly acquired 20t cog. Unfortunately, it was 38 degrees and pouring that day. Before I left my house I convinced myself that after riding for a little I would be warmed up enough to be comfortable. I was so, so wrong.

When I unloaded the bike from the Grumbler my clothes started to get wet. I should have expected this. Man has know for millennial that when water fall from the sky, man gets wet. Again I convinced myself that once I started to ride my body would become so warm that it would vaporize any water that touched it.

So I rode. And I felt every damn drip that hit my wool jersey. Drip. Drip. Drip. I cringed with each freezing impact. After rolling through some tall weeds, my arms became totally soaked. My original plan was to ride the Blue loop at Apollo once with the 18t, and once with the 20t and compare the times. But I was freezing, and the poly-poo pants that I was wearing were soaked and not holding any warmth at all, so I resolved to return to the Grumbler to change my clothes and install the 20t. One lap of the course would be plenty that day.

I got back to the vehicle and changed my pants (I'd rather wear a live raccoon than wet synthetic) and socks, and put the 20t cog on. I was short one spacer. Apparently, a surly cog is narrower than an endless bikes cog. At that point I was cold, wet, and annoyed. So I threw the bike in the Grumbler and drove home. The weather beat me that day (I'm not mountain biking in 38 degree rain ever again. Unless I'm racing, or somebody decides to pay me to do it.)

I did go back to Apollo on Sunday, and it was a gorgeous sunny day. The leaves were out in all their colorful golden glory, I was able to wear a short sleeve jersey, and I didn't have a ride ending flat until I was two hours into my ride. What more could a guy ask for?

I'm guessing that topics for blogscussion are going to be scarce once the race season ends and the snow blankets the trails. So I plan on writing a few gear reviews over the dark months. I'm not insinuating that I'm actually qualified to review a carefully designed product, but hell, this is the interwebs. Everybody is an expert.

To facilitate my reviews, I've carefully designed my own rating system:

From Drop Box

In the four skogkatt system, a product receiviving a score of: three skogkatts is very good, two is functional, four is

perfect, and one is poorly designed. No skogkatts is a very bad thing.

But more excitingly, the Grumbler is getting some new clothes:

From Drop Box

Hells yeah. Its going to look sweet.